


Alone, Surely

by Lampshadez



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Other, also tagged other because her gender is open to interpretation and it's all valid!, tagged f/f because the present Doctor identifies as a woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lampshadez/pseuds/Lampshadez
Summary: Yasmin Khan knows things. She solves things, she helps things, she makes things happen. She’s certain.She’s got all of time and space laid out in front of her and for the first time ever, somehow, she has some alone time. Time to think about what’s happened, time to think about questions that will never have answers, time to think about questions with answers that are past due, even if she’s not sure she wants them.





	Alone, Surely

**Author's Note:**

> Breaking news: local gay* jumps aboard the 13/Yaz ship train and brings some angst 
> 
> *sexuality is a spectrum, I use gay as an umbrella term, yadda yadda, the point is I’m not straight and neither are The Doctor and Yaz

Yaz isn’t sure how it happened exactly. Everything was such a blur. One day, she was catching up with her old friend Ryan and investigating a weird pod in the woods, and the next she’s an unwitting participant in a death race in space. And then the next day she’s speaking to Rosa Parks. Then just when things maybe get back to normal, she’s facing giant spiders at her mom’s work. Then she steps out to buy bread and the next thing she knows, she’s been to at least four more planets, a different moon (not that’s she’s been to Earth’s moon - yet) and so many time periods that she’s lost track. She, a rookie cop from Sheffield, has sassed King James. She’d been to her grandmother’s first wedding, decades before she even existed herself.

The whole time, the Doctor was there, and Ryan and Graham. The whole time, there was someone to talk to, someone to sit with, someone to spend the journey with. Someone to hand her a cloth when she took to polishing Prem’s watch, someone to sit with her while she ran in her head what she’d say to Dan’s daughter.

Yaz wasn’t one for alone. She never was. She was never alone at home, she was never alone at work, and that was how she liked it. She loved being in the middle of the action, she loved taking the first step toward something and she loved having people around for it.

But still, as they hopped across the universe, she would find herself sitting alone in some back room of the TARDIS. The first time, she’d gone exploring with Ryan. He’d been saying for a while that he figured the Doctor would have an ace video game collection, and he found it. She’d left him to his fun.

She’d barely turned the corner before she saw another door, a door she could’ve sworn wasn’t there a second ago, and she opened it. And she went in and she shut the door and she sat. And sometimes she paced. And sometimes she looked out the window - yes, there was a window. And though the Doctor has explained that they moved far too fast to see anything but a blur outside, Yaz could see space, clear as day. Rather, clear as night. Actually, clear as the ongoing journey of time, independent of planetary day/night binaries.

Sometimes she walked along the bookshelves that lined the wall, running her finger along the books. There was the odd shelf full of board games as well, too.

Somehow, she kept coming back to that room. She was starting to suspect that maybe the room was coming back to her.

It was hard to tell time in the TARDIS, but whenever she left that room, it was like just a few minutes had passed for everyone else, though it could feel like she’d spent hours alone with her thoughts.

The idea of that used to scare her, if she was being honest. She prided herself so much on being able to spring into action, to provide answers and help and support, that the idea of ever second guessing herself scared her. She wasn’t afraid of being wrong, exactly; it was more that she was afraid of not being sure. If she was wrong, she could learn from it and get it right. Uncertainty was worse.

But she wasn’t scared in that room.

She didn’t know how to talk about so many things. She wasn’t sure she needed to talk about them - Yaz wasn’t much of a talker. She was a doer. She processed things in her own way, in her own time. But time was different and she had so many secrets to juggle, it felt like she just kept postponing the processing.

She sat in that room on that first trip there, taking in the sight of open space and mentally pinching herself, reminding herself that all this was real. Her instincts - her finely honed, major-source-of-pride instincts - were telling her that, despite how outlandish and ridiculous and unbelievable all of this was, it was true. It was happening. Her desire to do good had always outweighed her fear of the unknown, it was why she fell into step with the Doctor so quickly.

She’d thought about Rosa Parks, there, too. She’d been so surprised when Yaz said she was a police officer. Yaz wasn’t naive, she knew how police could be. How they were, to a lot of people, both in the past and the present. Her time with Rosa made her wonder - would she have arrested her? Would her coworkers have?

She asked Graham about it once. He was a bus driver after all. What would Graham have done? Would he have called the police?

These weren’t questions that could ever have answers, and Yaz knew that. She knew what she wanted the answers to be, what she almost entirely believed them to be, but there was that uncertainty.

She thought about her time in the Punjab in 1947. She loved her grandmother and she thought she knew her. And then she realized she did know her – knowing someone didn’t mean knowing everything about them. Part of her wish she never went back, that she never got it into her head that she needed to know about the watch. Her grandmother didn’t want to talk about it and she went looking anyway. And she couldn’t do anything, she had to stand there and watch it happen. She couldn’t warn her, she couldn’t comfort her, she couldn’t let her know it would be alright. She wasn’t sure there was a way for her to help, definitely not back then and also even now.

It was unsettling - it was isolating - to realize her own place in history. Yasmin Khan was confident and self-assured of her own talents and skills and the roles she could fill. But there were some roles given to her, some roles she didn’t chose, some roles she didn’t entirely understand or knew that she didn’t entirely understand until she started traveling.

She sat in that room and thought long and hard when they came back from the Punjab. She could still hear that gunshot ringing in her ears. 

She couldn’t change it. She didn’t want to hear it when she was at home or when she was traveling elsewhere, so she let herself hear it then. She let herself smell the fresh henna as it was applied to her hands, and she watched it fade 70 years and some days after the fact.

She could still feel the way the hair on her neck stood on end when those cops came for Rosa Parks on the bus. She could still feel the cold metal of Dan’s charm in her hand, the mud from Lancashire still caked onto her shoes, the sanitized air from the _Tsuranga_ , the cold air below the crane that first night she met the Doctor. 

Things weren’t always so dire in the room, though. She’d found a book about King James I in there and got to reading. He was certainly a character. And he was certainly deserving of the Doctor’s ire. Ryan deserved better than him, certainly. She thought about the good times, too, getting closer to her old friend and the new ones. The trips when there weren’t lives on the line. The trips that she knew she’d never be able to really explain to anyone but the other people there.

One day after a much-hyped visit to Space Florida, there was a knock on the door.

“Yaz?”

“Doctor? Come in.”

The Doctor entered. She was still wearing the overpriced floral shirt she’d bought on the boardwalk under her suspenders, but her jacket was off.

“Ah, I was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

“Just here,” Yaz said. “What is this, anyway? Your library?”

The Doctor laughed, sitting beside her on the steps that maybe had always been there? Yaz wasn’t sure.

“Oh, no. You could fit a hundred of this room in the library. Another good fifty in the upstairs one.”

Yaz looked around. It was a pretty sizable room. And she didn’t know that there was an upstairs to the TARDIS.

“Right. Big reader, then, are you?”

“Well, what are the young people about these days? Audiobooks?”

Now Yaz laughed. “No, Doctor. The young people aren’t all about audiobooks.”

“Really? I’m going to have to return a lot of recording equipment.”

Yaz wasn’t thinking. Keeping in tune with her love of certainty, she was damn sure of that. As she laughed, she put her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

She froze for a second. But, she stayed.

“Long day?” The Doctor asked after a moment. There was something soft in her voice, though Yaz chalked it up to her just being tired too. Or, she hoped she had.

“Space Florida is nice,” Yaz said. “It was like a proper holiday. I liked it, being on holiday together.”

The Doctor put her arm around Yaz’s shoulders. “Yeah. It was fun.”

They sat in silence for a few moments.

“That’s what you’re doing in here then?” The Doctor asked. “Reminiscing on all the fun?”

“No,” Yaz said with a bit of a laugh. “I like it in here. I’m never alone anywhere but here.”

“Alone is overrated,” The Doctor said quickly and quietly. She tensed a bit right after, like she regretted saying it.

“Were you alone?” Yaz asked. “Before you picked us all up?”

“Not for very long, no.”

“Have you done this alone?”

“What, sit on some steps?”

“Save people, solve things,” Yaz said. “Travel. All the stuff you do with us.”

The Doctor cleared her throat a bit. “I’ve had my moments to myself, yeah.”

“Do you miss it, Doctor?”

“Being alone?” The Doctor exhaled with a laugh. “No. Not with the great company I have with you lot.” She gave Yaz a bit of a shake.

But Yaz knew her better now. A month ago, Yaz would’ve taken that at face value. But she won’t now. She can’t. She’s certain there’s more there.

There’s a lot more there than she’s acknowledged before. Some because she knows to avoid a mess when possible, and some because the only way to know is to ask. And it’s gotten to the point where she knows she needs to ask, before anything else between them can go on in any capacity, she needs to ask. She needs to know. And she hates it.

“You’re from Gallifrey,” Yaz begins.

The Doctor nods. “Mhm.”

“What happened to it?” Yaz said. “Why did you come to Earth and travel with humans? Why don’t you travel with anyone from Gallifrey?”

The Doctor smirked at her, but Yaz could see that it was a shield, a diversion. “Are you interrogating me, PC Khan?”

“Are you dodging it?”

The smirk fell and the Doctor was still for a long time. Again, Yaz had no idea how long, but any amount of time for the Doctor being still beyond a few seconds felt like an eternity.

“It’s complicated.”

“We have time.”

“It’s personal.”

“Right,” Yaz said. “Sorry. We don’t even know your real name.”

“Why do you need to know it?”

Yaz shook the Doctor’s arm off her back and turned to face her.

“It’s your name, Doctor. It’s who you are.”

“No, it’s not. It’s who they made me. This name is mine, this is who I am. I’m the Doctor. That’s all you need to know me as.”

Yaz nodded. “Right, yeah, if that’s all I need...”

“Yaz, no, I’m sorry.” The Doctor could see Yaz pulling away and she took her hand. “You know that I was different before, right? I’ve been other versions of me.”

“Right,” Yaz went on. “I’m sorry, it is your name. We don’t need to know what it was, who you are now is what matters.”

“I become what I need,” The Doctor explained. “Or I grow into it and hope for the best, it’s not really clear. Either way, I’ve been so many things and so many people but I’ve always been me. That’s the thing with being this old, of having worn so many faces and had so many friends. I can reset myself but not what I’ve done.”

Yaz was concerned now. She was always concerned for the Doctor. She knew there was something dark in her, she knew the Doctor was terrified of being alone. She knew she didn’t want the Doctor to be alone.

“What’ve you done, Doctor?” Yaz asked. Now she was speaking quietly.

“I’m different,” she said. “The me that I am now isn’t the me I was then. I wouldn’t have done it like that, the only one of me who would’ve done it like that is the one who did it. And I fixed it, they’re safe.”

“Okay, Doctor,” Yaz said. “It’s okay.”

“I killed them,” The Doctor said. Yaz kept her jaw locked tight. She didn’t know what she expected the Doctor to say but it certainly wasn’t that. “All of them. My people, the Daleks, everyone, to end a war that would’ve gone without end. The bloodshed, the fighting, the horror, I ended it, and then I ran away.”

“Okay...” Yaz took her hand back. She mostly was doing it so she could think but still, she took her hand back from the Doctor. “How did you fix that?”

“A big red button,” The Doctor said. “It’s a long story. Basically, I found a way to hide them. And then, I found them. They’re okay.”

“So you didn’t kill anyone.”

“No, I did,” The Doctor said resolutely. “I just unkilled them after.”

“That wasn’t you, though. That wasn’t this you.”

“Yaz-.”

“No,” Yaz repeated. “You said you become what you need, yeah? You became the person to end the war, and then became the person to save them. I reckon that if even you couldn’t do both those things at once, no one could.”

The Doctor let herself grin a bit. She knew a thing or two about running, and she’d been running from her feelings about all that for a while. She had been running from telling her new friends about it all, too.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before,” she said. “You deserve to know who you’re travelling with, who you’re risking your life with.”

“I do,” Yaz said. She looked the Doctor dead in the eyes. “I do, Doctor. You’re a good person.”

“Still think I’m like, the best person you’ve ever met?” the Doctor asked, putting on her best Yaz impression at the end.

“Yes,” Yaz said, rolling her eyes a bit but meaning the sentiment.

Her grin got wider. “You know, this is why I love travelling with humans.”

“What, for the ego boost?”

“For the hopefulness.”

“Okay,” Yaz laughed.

“I mean it,” the Doctor continued. “You’re brimming with hope. You're great, Yasmin Khan.”

Yaz looked at her and for the first time ever couldn’t hold her gaze.

“Oh, come on,” she said, looking down. “We all met because of sheer luck. The TARDIS could’ve landed anywhere, any officer could’ve shown up, anything could’ve happened.”

“No, she chose you.”

“The _TARDIS_ chose me?” Yaz asked, laughing a bit. 

The lights flickered and Yaz could swear the floor she was sitting on got a bit colder.

“Oi, relax,” the Doctor said, looking around the room. The lights settled and Yaz felt a bit more comfortable. “I mean it, though. She chose you, and Ryan and Graham and Grace. She was broken down and hurt but she looked out for me.”

“Yeah,” Yaz said, admitting it as she looked around the room that always seemed to be there when she needed it, even when she didn’t know it. “She looks out for all of us.”

“She likes you, you know. Even when you’re mean.”

“Yeah?”

“She doesn’t make rooms for just anybody.”

“I thought she put this here for me!” Yaz said.

“It’s a nice room,” the Doctor said. “I’ve never seen it before. But there’s always new rooms popping up. I hope to find the pool one of these days, I don’t know where it’s gone.”

“Oh, Graham’s found it.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor laughed, leaning back on her elbows. Yaz joined her in the same position. “Good for him.”

“So that’s what you think of humans?” Yaz asked. “We’re good…I don’t know. Travelling companions?”

“Friends,” the Doctor corrected quickly, a bit of panic in her voice. “I think of you as friends. Are we not friends?”

“No, we are,” Yaz said. “Of course we’re friends.”

“No,” the Doctor said, turning toward her. “There’s something wrong. You don’t seem happy to be friends.”

“No, I am,” Yaz said. “I love being your friend.”

“Good,” the Doctor smiled. “I love being your friend, too.”

Yaz returned the smile, but there was that voice in her head again, telling her to say more. She wasn’t sure she should, but she sure wanted to.

“I want to be more than your friend,” she said quickly.

“What?” the Doctor asked. “Do you want to hang out more?”

“Doctor I like you,” Yaz said quickly. “In a way that you don’t like your friends. In a different way.”

“Oh.”

“You know what, never mind,” Yaz said. “Don’t worry about, eh? It’s fine. I shouldn’t have said anything-.” Yaz went to stand, but the Doctor grabbed her hand and Yaz froze.

“I’m glad you did,” the Doctor said.

“You are?”

“Yaz, you’re incredible,” the Doctor said. “Truly, you’re brilliant. I’m still new to this me, to this body, to these friends, but…I like you too, Yaz.”

Yaz smiled wide. “Yeah?”

“Of course,” the Doctor said. “Have you met you? You’re so brave, and smart, and funny. You’re capable of anything you set your mind to. You’re a force to be reckoned with, Yasmin Khan.”

Yaz blushed. “No one’s spoken about me like that before.”

“Well, they should,” the Doctor said, nodding like it was obvious.

“So, what now?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “I haven’t been on a first date in ages.”

“So we’re going on a date?”

“Is that not what you meant?” the Doctor asked, sitting up again. “Oh, no-.”

“No, it is,” Yaz smiled. “I just…right now?”

“Not if you don’t want it to be,” the Doctor said. “I’ve got a time machine. It can be whenever, literally.”

“No, uh,” Yaz smiled more to herself. She could think clearly in that room. The Doctor had called her brave but Yaz never really felt like an especially brave person. She just did what she thought she should, it was simple. But here she was, talking about her feelings, facing them and going after them and doing things that scared her. “Now’s good.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said, standing. She gave Yaz a hand up. “Graham’s been going on and on about some football match in 1966, I reckon it’s time I finally let him go. We’ll drop him and Ryan and go off. Do you like Brazilian food? I know this fantastic place in Rio.”

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “You can get tickets to that game?”

“What, do you want to go, too?”

“It’s just the most important football game in English history.”

The Doctor laughed. “Alright, we’ll go to the game. Then, Rio?”

“Then Rio.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Yeah,” Yaz smiled. “Sounds good.” She wasn’t sure of much, but she was sure of that.

**Author's Note:**

> I looooooove the new season. Like, I gave up on Who during Moffat but the new season is so good. So yeah I guess I’m back in the fandom now.


End file.
